Delaney Announces Digital Privacy and Technology Plan

Posted by Team Delaney on September 5, 2019

Plan includes federal digital privacy legislation, protections for children

FRIENDSHIP
HEIGHTS, MD
– John Delaney announces today his Digital Privacy and Technology plan.
Delaney’s plan calls for federal digital privacy legislation, new privacy
protections for children and new measures to ensure that artificial
intelligence is not utilized in a biased way. Delaney’s federal privacy legislation
would give consumers a Right to Know, a Right to Access, a Right to Decide, a
Right to Decide, a Right to Delete and a Private Right of Action. Delaney’s
plan also calls for funding for federal research into the effects of social
media on children.

“So
much of our lives, from our personal data to our finances, are now online and
we need new consumer protections to ensure that our privacy is protected,” said
Delaney. “My Digital Privacy Plan would give every American more control over
their data, would help protect children from being tracked online, would ensure
that artificial intelligence is used responsibly and would provide federal
funding for research into the impacts of social media on the health of young
people. The cost of doing nothing is not nothing. We aren’t serving the people when
we have telegraph-era laws in a smartphone age.”

John’s
wife April is the Washington Director of Common Sense Media and a leader on
technology issues. Delaney founded the AI Caucus in the House of
Representatives.

John
Delaney’s Digital Privacy and Technology Policy

The
very fabric of our society is impacted by the role of communications and
technology. Personal devices,
artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are more prevalent in our
lives than ever, but we haven’t adopted the policies we need to address the
capabilities of these new technologies or the risks they pose to our privacy.
We need to come together and set new rules of the road. John’s wife April, the
Washington Director of Common Sense Media, is a leader on technology issues and
both John and April have a strong record of promoting awareness of technology’s
potential risk to children’s health and of advocating for children’s
well-being.

For
many years U.S. communications policy was rooted in the Telecommunications Act
of 1934 (and updated in 1996) and in the public interest policies of the
Federal Communications Commission and Federal Trade Commission in the areas of
broadcast, cable and common carrier/telephony. With the advent of the internet
and a convergence of digitized platforms, the communications landscape morphed
in ways unanticipated by the internet’s original creators. Internet Service
Providers (ISPs) and technology companies were allowed to circumvent antitrust
and public interest regulation because the internet was originally created to
be a communications platform available free of charge and without government
oversight. However, in a 24/7 broadband world these digitized networks, and
affiliated service platforms, subsumed the formerly regulated areas of
telecommunications, entertainment and commerce. Compounding this trend, the
ever-growing capabilities of AI along with the rapid proliferation of personal
devices accelerated the impact of a digital convergence which caught consumers
and government regulators off guard. Most did not notice these changes: until
the world changed. Our country began to understand that failing to update those
core communications policies that protect consumers, uphold the public interest
and promote a fair, equal and transparent playing field among providers was
damaging to public life. As Delaney says, the cost of doing nothing is not
nothing.

Delaney,
along with a growing consensus of consumer groups, child advocates, nonprofits
and companies, realizes the need to update our communications policies not only
in a way that encourages innovation and competition, but also to ensure long
respected consumer protections and liberties are not unintentionally
compromised. Specifically, there should be a renewed holistic discussion on
issues such as consumer privacy, community programming and localism, campaign
election communications and disclosure laws, eavesdropping protections,
children’s programming, tech addiction issues, market concentration of media
companies, the impact of undisclosed algorithms on consumers and on commerce
more generally, and cyber and national security. Delaney understands the
sweeping implications of cybersecurity, which is why he has called for a new
Department of Cybersecurity.

Digital
Privacy:

Due
to the unique origins of the internet, most ISPs’ early business plans centered
on taking users’ online personal proprietary information or other data often
obtained without their knowledge or consent, and selling that data to third
parties. Most telecommunications providers now rely on gathering information
from consumers during their online activities so they can better market to them
and track their personal information as well as online activities and
behaviors. Laws and regulations must be
updated to protect personal data and improve transparency. Delaney proposes
requiring tech companies to improve transparency and provide consumers with
proper notice of their data collection practices, which will allow individuals
to understand potential privacy risks and choose whether to provide their
informed consent.

Delaney is calling for federal
digital privacy legislation, modeled after the California Consumer Privacy Act,
that will promote transparency so consumers can make informed choices about how
to protect their privacy.

Right to know: Device manufacturers
will be required to include an easy to understand list of components on product
labels so consumers will know their devices’ capabilities to record, store, and
share their personal data. Additionally, companies will be required to inform
users about data collection and sharing.

Right to access: Consumers will be
able to request their personal data that companies have collected in a usable
format.

Right to decide: Consumers will be
able to opt out of the collection or sale of their personal data.

Right to delete: Consumers who opt
out of data collection can also request that companies delete any personal data
that has been collected.

Private right of action: Individuals
will have the right to sue companies who violate privacy rules.

Delaney supports particularly strong
protections for minors, and he will update the Children’s Online Privacy
Protection Act (COPPA) to prohibit the collection of personal data of any
person under the age of 16 without their consent.

COPPA imposes an “actual knowledge”
standard regarding the collection of data from underage users. Delaney will
further strengthen COPPA by replacing the “actual knowledge” standard with a
“constructive knowledge” standard, which will hold companies accountable for
collecting data from children when companies should have known through
reasonable care that underage users were on their platform.

Delaney will ensure that all tech
companies that are directed to children or that have substantial numbers of
users under the age of 16 are covered by COPPA requirements.

Companies will be prohibited from
refusing to serve individuals who opt-out of data collection or who request to
have their collected data deleted.

Delaney believes that personal
communications should remain private and not subject to unconsented
eavesdropping by a third party. More specifically, private conversations in
one’s home should be specifically protected. Laws that protect privacy with
communication devices should extend to makers of smart speakers or other
personal devices (e.g., Alexa) or smart interactive toys marketed to children.
Tech companies must obtain informed consent before recording and storing
private conversations, or utilizing these conversations to train AI or to
access user location.

Impacts
of Technology on Children:

We know that everyone, including
children and teens, uses social media and personal devices more than ever
before, but we still don’t have a comprehensive look at what effect this
technology has on our health. Researchers from medical schools in the US and
the UK have found that children who use devices before going to bed are twice
as likely to have inadequate sleep and nearly 3 times as likely to be tired
throughout the next day as children who did not use a device. According to a
report from Common Sense Media, 50% of teens feel addicted to their phones or
other devices and 78% of teens check their devices at least once an hour.

To better understand this issue
Delaney introduced the Children and Media Research Advancement Act (CAMRA),
bipartisan legislation that would fund the first-ever NIH research into how
technology and personal devices affect the cognitive, physical and emotional
development of infants, children and adolescents.

Delaney proposes the creation of a
government-led task force comprised of nonprofits, consumer groups, child
advocates, representatives of government agencies and industry to discuss how
best to harness the best of technology for children and discuss best practices.
This task force would discuss issues such as protecting youth privacy, tech
addiction issues, skyrocketing anxiety and disconnection and ways to promote
physical and emotional well-being.

Artificial
Intelligence:

Delaney
was a co-founder of the Artificial Intelligence Caucus while in Congress, and
believes that as a country we need to better understand the implications of
technology and harness the power of AI to best encourage innovation, job
creation and improve our national security.

Delaney will address the privacy implications of AI. Companies should not be able to use a smartphone or other device to monitor facial expressions as one looks at content and ads without consent.

We must also set clear regulations to protect consumers, especially children, from the manipulative use of AI and facial recognition in advertising.

Algorithmic Bias

While it is tempting to think AI can make unbiased decisions, we actually risk bias being baked-in to the programming that perpetuates human bias with no clear ways to rectify it once the bias is incorporated into the algorithms.

Delaney will partner with the private sector and non-profits to develop best practices against AI technology inheriting human biases.

In addition, he will require the private sector to report on, and then update if necessary, their computer algorithms to help end bias in automated decision making.